Theatre in Bristol - An Audience with Horace Batchelor: King of Keynsham at The Brewery, North St, Ashton, July 30-August 10

Growing up I lost count of the number of times that, when I told people where I was from, they'd reply, 'Keynsham? Is that spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M?'" The speaker is playwright Kevin Cattell, who has penned a play about one of the most unique and notorious characters to have emerged from his hometown.

Keynsham has contributed more than its fair share of notable figures, in fact, including cricketer Marcus Trescothick, snooker ace Judd Trump and comedian/polymath Bill Bailey. One figure, though, gave the town more notoriety than any of these modern-day heroes.

From the 1950s to 1970s Horace Batchelor, the self-proclaimed "King of Keynsham", became famous for his Infra-Draw Method for winning the football pools. Batchelor's habit of painstakingly spelling out the name of his hometown during his adverts on Radio Luxembourg also became a cult comic vignette (and even spawned a sort of tribute album, the Bonzo Dog Band's Keynsham).

For Kevin, as for many other Keynshamites, the Batchelor story loomed large in his childhood. "I often heard this unforgettable, Dickensian name mentioned alongside my home town," he recalls now. In fact, he was sufficiently intrigued by Batchelor's story to pen a play about the King of Keynsham.

The play is set in 1974, by which time Horace's Infra-Draw Method has brought him a lot of money – and a degree of infamy to both him and his home town. In this rags-to-riches story, Horace leads audiences into his world just before he leaves it himself. Just what was the Infra-Draw Method? Did it really work – or was it all one big scam?

The play is being staged by Bristol's Blue Brook Productions, a relatively new but hugely impressive local outfit created by Bristol Old Vic Theatre School graduate Ed Viney. Kevin describes his play as "a vibrant comedy, meandering through the fall and rise of a self-made local celebrity".

"Through Horace's reminiscences, and his unshakeable belief that he is doing something good, the audience decide whether he deserves the recognition that he so passionately craves – be it a blue plaque or a place in the history books."

"The more I delved into his life, the more questions and contradictions came to light," Kevin continues. "For instance, why has Keynsham since disowned its most famous son? Horace definitely divides local feeling. Was he a Branson-style entrepreneur who came up with a credible system for winning the pools? Or was he a charlatan who simply got rich off people's dreams?"

Kevin began requesting local memories of the man – and soon found himself inundated with information.

"I heard from the man who delivered Horace's telegram informing him of his pools win in 1948, from the couple who bought his enormous house (the splendidly named Infra Grange in neighbouring Saltford)… We were even contacted by Horace's great-granddaughter, an interior designer – another entrepreneur in the family!"

Batchelor made his big pools win in 1948, at the age of 50, and invested his winnings into creating and marketing his own method for winning. "To build a more rounded character, we had to look back on his first 50 years, to other incidents that shaped his character," Kevin reveals.

What came through were his consummate salesman skills, shameless self-promotion, and uncanny ability to persuade people to part with their money and share in his dream."

Blue Brook's Batchelor is played by Roland Oliver, an acclaimed local stage and television actor, and veteran of several Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory seasons.

"The 1950s were a more innocent time," Kevin muses. "People weren't used to today's aggressive advertising techniques. Horace's Bristolian tones, coming out of a crackly transistor radio in between the latest rock and roll records, must have sounded like a trusted voice of reason…"